Big Data and the opportunity to build a better workforce - SmartBrief

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Big Data and the opportunity to build a better workforce

2 min read

Management

SmartBrief is partnering with Big Think to create a weekly video spotlight in SmartBrief on Leadership called “VIP Corner: Video Insights Powered by Big Think.” This week, we’re featuring Haig Nalbantian, a senior partner at Mercer.

Companies should already realize that “human capital is indeed an asset,” but now Big Data is providing enough information for them to hire, manage and develop employees better, says Haig Nalbantian.

“All of those transactions, every hire you make, every rating you give, every new assignment you give, every pay increase you give, every decision a person makes every day to stay or leave their organization, it’s all captured in electronic systems,” he says.

The next step is smartly analyzing and making sense of that wealth of information, developing a framework that can be applied to company strategy instead of old standbys like intuition or the CEO’s personal preferences. Gut feelings still have a place, he says, but they no longer form the basis for how you hire, whom you hire and how you help your team reach its potential.

Most importantly, devising the right metrics and analysis for workforce data can give companies a level of control over a market — internal labor — that is extremely difficult to attain in external markets. “You can make the outcomes what you need them to be to deliver to your business design. … There is no reason all business leaders should not understand thoroughly how their internal labor markets work, and whether they’re working in the right way, or whether they need to be changed,” Nalbantian says.

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